Test vendor moves to toss California's lawsuit over botched bar exam, says fraud claims fail

By Karen Sloan

June 23 (Reuters) - The testing company that delivered California’s disastrous February bar exam asked a judge on Friday to throw out the bulk of The State Bar of California’s lawsuit against it, claiming that the state bar cannot rely on the company's early statements about its online testing capacity to demonstrate fraud.

In a court document filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, defendant Meazure Learning sought dismissal of five of the state bar’s six alleged counts, including fraud and negligent misrepresentation. The company's filing, which is called a demurrer, did not address the state bar's breach of contract claim.

The state bar on Monday declined to comment on the filing, and attorneys for Meazure did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The state bar sued Meazure in May, accusing the company of failing to live up to its promises that its systems could handle thousands of bar examinees. The state bar signed a $4.1 million contract with the company in September 2024 to administer the February and future exams, to be given both remotely and in person. The new format was meant to reduce the state bar’s cost of administering the attorney licensing exam.

However, the February test was marred with widespread technical and logistical problems. Some test takers were unable to log into the bar exam at all while many experienced delays, lax exam security, distracting proctors, and a copy-and-paste function that didn’t work.

In the new filing, Meazure argues that any comments made by the company about the number of online test takers it could handle outside of its actual contract with the state bar do not meet the standard to prove fraud of negligent misrepresentation because they are not binding.

“The court should reject plaintiff’s attempt to turn Meazure’s alleged breaches of contract into an intentional tort,” Meazure’s demurrer reads.

Meazure is already facing two proposed federal class actions from people who took the February test. State Bar Executive Director Leah Wilson said she will step down from her post in July, citing the bungled rollout of the new bar exam.

Meazure, based in Birmingham, Alabama, bills itself on its website as the "largest and most experienced remote proctoring operation in the market," with more than 1,500 test centers in 115 countries. Meazure was formed through the 2020 merger of testing companies ProctorU and Yardstick.

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